May Day Boycott Looming, EBay Revises Impact of 'Bug'

The extended eBay boycott that concluded Sunday will not be the last hurrah for sellers angry about recent policy changes. Organizers are gearing up for a May Day strike of the online auction site.

"We have picked the date of May 1 [because] it gives us time to organize and spread the word, [and] it coincides with the month the new feedback changes go into effect," Mary Killion, a seller who has been organizing boycott efforts through eBay's forums, wrote in a recent post. "And personally, I always think of May as the month when things really begin to grow."

eBay sellers large and small have pledged not to list, buy, or peruse any of eBay's listings during the open-ended event. But while sellers are eager to participate in the strike, many are doubtful that their actions will result in eBay changing its policies.

"I'm afraid that if they do reverse the current changes, they will just find another way to slap us in the face," said Sandra Campbell, a power seller who was with eBay since its inception, but has since defected to other online auction sites.

"Do I think the situation will change? Honestly I don't, because I think the goal of eBay management this time is to fundamentally change the nature of the site, making it more a retail mall of homogeneous goods than an antique market or (heaven forbid) a flea-market," wrote Lillian Bauer, a seller since 1998 who shut down her eBay store last week.

At issue are policy changes that went into effect on February 20. Though the site decreased listing prices and made certain offerings free of charge, they also stripped sellers of the right to leave feedback, and increased the percentage of the final sale that goes to eBay.

Annoyed sellers revolted and called on sellers to boycott the site during the week of February 18. They later extended that strike to March 9.

Boycott results have been difficult to quantify, however. The sellers pushing for eBay strikes have organized themselves through online petitions, MySpace pages, Facebook groups, and eBay forum postings, but appear to currently lack a cohesive strategy that would best be able to battle an e-commerce giant like eBay.

Killion wrote in the forums that her group is in the process of choosing state leaders who will handle media contacts and news distribution.

Organizers have not had much luck negotiating with eBay.

"It would be my pleasure to discuss all of these issues with eBay," said Timothy Church, a former seller who is running the Boycott EBay MySpace page. "Currently, however, eBay has made it very clear to me they are not interested in negotiating."

eBay has been relatively unfazed by the boycotts. Though auction statistic Web sites reported a 13 percent drop in eBay listings during the first week of the boycott, eBay brushed off those stats and said they failed to take into account a 20-cent listings promotion that caused a spike in pre-boycott listings.

This is not the first time eBay has faced an angry community of sellers. The site has implemented several changes over the past few years, including 2005 and 2006 rate hikes that also prompted seller boycotts.

Sellers were not as irked by those changes as they are about the most recent overhaul.

"We didn't have a problem with the rate increases in 2006," said Ilene Rachford, an eBay seller since 2000 who recently moved her business to Neoloch. "It was just the cost of doing business. And we feel the same way about the new increases."

"What we absolutely cannot abide by is the new feedback rule," she continued. "This is completely, totally unfair and will destroy sellers in an instant. Now sellers will be open to feedback extortion, more unpaid items, buying scams and a host of other problems, simply because the buyer 'can'... and the seller has no recourse."

"What eBay fails to realize is that their sellers were also buyers," Rachford said. "Chasing them away makes that a double whammy."

Occasional powerseller Linda Adler said she sent a complaint to the Federal Trade Commission "charging eBay with fraudulent practices, restraint of trade, and operating a vertical monopoly thought PayPal and eBay."

FTC complaints are non-public, so the agency was unable to provide information on how many eBay-related filings it may have received.

eBay admitted that shopping.com listings were accidentally placed on eBay, but denied that the move was intended to pad listing numbers during the boycott. Instead, a glitch related to the gallery function had resulted in shopping.com posts showing up on eBay, according to a spokesman.

An eBay spokesman told PC Magazine at the time that 5,000 shopping.com listings were erroneously placed on ebay.com. After sellers expressed doubt about that number in the comments section, eBay was asked to again confirm that it was indeed 5,000. The same spokesman responded Friday that he had originally told PC Magazine that eBay pulled 35,000 listings, but a review of the interview confirmed that he said 5,000.

Sellers were also up in arms over deleted eBay forum posts. The auction site reserves the right to delete posts it deems inappropriate, but some sellers said their posts were deleted simply because they criticized eBay.

One deleted post obtained by PC Magazine called eBay a monopoly and attacked another user as "stupid" and a "sucker." Another sarcastically called people "crackheads" and called another user dumb for believing "eBay-speak."

In deleting these posts, eBay cited its rule that bans profanity, vulgarity, hate speech, disruptive, or hostile comments, interpersonal disputes, or threats of violence on its boards.

Another deleted comment called on users to joint the SUBAT Fight FeeBay boycott. It did not contain obscene language, but referred to eBay as a tyrant and pledged to "give them a war."

When asked about deleted posts, an eBay spokesman denied last week that comments were pulled down strictly for being anti-eBay. If any such posts were deleted, it was "accidental," he said. "We're not afraid of hearing from our community and allowing them to post and discuss things and be angry on our boards."

Editor's Note: The eBay spokesman confirmed Monday that the number of postings pulled from shopping.com was indeed 35,000.

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